mbering that, in spite of his terror, he had voluntarily
gone up to the top of the house to call her, she felt something
strangely uncomfortable at the back of her throat.

"Come along, Gustave!" she cried brightly. "Let us help get the tea.
I'm so thirsty."

From that moment Gustave appeared to take himself in hand, and save for
a violent start, at the more vigorous reports, seemed to have overcome
his terror.

As Patricia proceeded to assist Mrs. Craske-Morton, a veritable heroine
in a pink flannel wrapper, she took stock of her fellows. Miss Wangle
was engaged in prayer and tears, her wig was awry, her face drawn and
yellow and her clothes the garb of advanced maidenhood. On her feet
were bed-socks, half thrust into felt slippers. From beneath a black
quilted dressing-gown peeped with virtuous pride the longcloth of a
nightdress of Victorian severity.

Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe was in curl-papers and a faded blue kimono that
allowed no suggestion to escape of the form beneath. Miss Sikkum had
seized a grey raincoat, above which a forest of curl papers looked
strangely out of place. Her fingers moved restlessly. The two top
buttons of the raincoat were missing, displaying a wealth of blue
ribbon and openwork that none had suspected in her. The lateness at
which the ribbon and openwork began gave an interesting demonstration
in feminine bone structure.

Mr. Sefton was splendid in a purple dressing-gown with orange cord and
tassels, and red and white striped pyjamas beneath. Mr. Sefton had
chosen his raid-costume with elaborate care; but the suddenness of the
alarm had not allowed of the arrangement of his hair, most of which
hung down behind in a sandy cascade. His manner was the forced heroic.
He was smoking a cigarette with a too obvious nonchalance to deceive.
The heroes of Mr. Sefton's imagination always lit cigarettes when
facing death. They were of the type that seizes a revolver when the
ship is sinking and, with one foot placed negligently upon the capstan
(Mr. Sefton had not the most remote idea of what a capstan was like)
shouted, "Women and children first."

He walked about the kitchen with what he meant to be a smile upon his
pale lips. The cigarette he found a nuisance. If he held it between
his lips the smoke got in his eyes and made them stream with water; if,
on the other hand, he held it between his fingers, it emphasized the
shaking of his hand. He compromised by letting it go out betw